Long lost friends?!

No. I'm 25 and have been friends with people since we were 5 years old. There were times in our lives where we were best friends, but not anymore, trust me we are still good friends!. We talk maybe once a year. They did congratulate me on getting engaged but they're not invited to my wedding.

I hear you I would invite just the people you have on your guest list invite them after the wedding

The sameeeee exact thing happened to me! I’m just declining everyone’s invitations to hangout. Everyone wants to be around for the wedding but then disappears after, that’s what happened to my best friend. The minute I got engaged I made my list and vowed not to add anyone who came out of nowhere trying to rekindle old friendships.

I had a few do that as well. I'm happy they reached out and want to catch up, but I'm not inviting them to my wedding. It seems like you said, they heard news and came out of the woodwork. We're not inviting people unless they are family or close friends who we talk to on a regular basis. We're keeping it small and I can't feel bad for not wanting to invite everyone who reaches out..

Maybe you could keep your engagement party intimate with just family and potential bridal party? We haven't really run into the issue of old friends, but we do have the issue of way too many people on our guest list, so I feel your struggle.

A lot of times, people who haven't talked too will see "omg, huge life event, and I haven't been there for any of it! I didn't even know they were that close (or even that you were dating)." So thry legitimately just want to reconnect. I wouldn't plan to invite these people. But I would appreciate their interest.
I didn't run into this much because I got rid of my main social media pages (facebook primarily) well before we were engaged. So I didn't have a horde of people suddenly seeing and responding to it.

I've had people do the same thing, but meeting up for the first time in years doesn't mean an invite. We already had a guest list in mind prior to having these people reach out, and our venue doesn't allow more than 200 people, and we're already teetering the limit, so no room for many adjustments. We have a list of old friends that we have as a backup if we lose a large portion of guests.

We are struggling with this something similar. I also got in engaged in December with our wedding day is in this June. People have been rsvp-ing with plus 4/5 guests. I have had to be the "bad guy" and call to tell them they can not be that many in a nice way. When I explain we have only x amount of seats etc they understand. Especially those who have planned a wedding before. Ive also told people, it is Only for immediate family and very close friends. Sorry, but no. I will say, to have others feel included, we are doing os having a large "engagement party", but its in a fun skate venue. they have to pay for their cover and food etc. I look at it this way. If you don't want to invite them so be it. I would rather they have hurt feelings than you being stressed on your day. You cant invite or please everyone. Its your day. Dont feel guilty about it.

I've had someone do to this to me as well recently and I've rebuffed at her attempts to talk. It seems petty I know, but I haven't seen or spoken to her in nearly 3 years. For years after she moved, I reached out for birthdays, holidays, even her own wedding anniversary and nothing in return. I congratulated her on the birth of her daughter with no response. What was the final straw for me was when I saw she had invited everyone from home to her baby shower except for me. (There's a backstory to this but that's neither here nor there.)

My fiancé joked that I had ex-boyfriends treat me better than some friends. (It's true I had 3 exes congratulate me on our engagement and one will be joining us for the wedding haha). He said she probably feels guilty for how she's behaved and now wants to feel like she's part of the group again.

Nope. If you can't/haven't been genuinely involved in my life or ours as a couple, then don't consider yourself invited.

No, I haven’t experienced this. I’m an extremely private person and I never make announcements via social media. I rarely even post up photos of my significant other and I up.

B lists are not okay. Just like these people who are only talking to you with the agenda of getting an invite.

If you haven't talked to them in 6 months, you don't need to invite them. If they wanted to be that great of friends, you would have kept in touch.